Almost Everything I Need
by Karsa
Summary: The thoughts of Mimi around Goodbye Love.


Almost Everything I Need  
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I don't own Rent. I don't even rent Rent. That belongs to Mr. Larson.   
  
I'm just borrowing his characters for my story. If you want to use   
them, you'll have to talk to someone else   
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She felt his hands - lithe, supple, musician's hands - one running   
through her hair and the other up her leg as he kissed her mouth. She   
could almost taste the need, the need she had been able to mistake for   
love for so long.   
His oppressive weight bore down upon her, his kisses tracing a line   
across her jaw, down her neck, across her collarbone. She dug her   
fingers into his back, faking the passion she knew she was supposed to   
feel.   
  
"You look familiar-"   
"Like your dead girlfriend."   
"Only when you smile..."   
  
She wasn't smiling much these days.   
Right after New Years, she hadn't been able to stand it any longer,   
and she had asked him.   
"Do I look like her, Rog?"   
"Who? April?"   
"Yeah."   
"A little. I see her in your eyes, sometimes. But most of the time,   
you're just my Mimi."   
  
Collins told her once, over a bowl of strawberry ice-cream, that in   
their more amorous moments, Roger used to call April "May." It clung   
to her conscience every time he called her "Mi." Mi-may. Right, Rog?   
  
She never let on how much it bugged her. She never told him how when   
she wasn't with him, she walking around Central Park, wandering   
through empty alleyways, sojourning through New York in search of a   
quick fix to escape the pain and anger of not being her. Sometimes,   
for a lack of anywhere better to go, she really would go to Benny's,   
and just try to talk. At least Benny cared about her and not a figment   
of his imagination.   
  
"I always remind people of - who is she?"   
"She died. Her name was April."   
"It's out again."   
  
Little things made her thing of how she was really just a cheap   
replacement. The picture of April in his wallet, wrinkled and stained.   
  
A woman's shoe in the back of his closet. The way he and Mark went out   
drinking on her birthday, on her and Roger's anniversary, on the day   
she died.   
Did he think she was blind? That maybe she didn't notice how sad he   
looked on those days? That maybe if he didn't look at her, he'd be   
magically happy?  
June 17th didn't mean anything to most people, but Mimi had spent   
hours being drilled by Maureen.   
  
"One more time, from the top. April 5th."   
"April's Birthday."   
"June 17th."   
"April dies."   
"June 24th."   
"Roger was diagnosed with AIDS."   
"December 23."   
"Roger and April met."   
  
It was the last part that stung the most. If Rog and April met the   
23rd, and Roger met a girl who reminded him of April on th 24th, would   
he like her more?   
  
She could leave him. Sure, that was always an option. She could leave   
him with nothing but his guitar, his Mark, and his misery, and see   
what new girl he snapped up.   
  
The suspicion was eating away at her. She was rarely in the flat. She   
was at the hospital with Angel. She went to see her mother. She got a   
new tattoo and shot a lot of heroin. It was just like living without   
the pain.   
  
He was still kissing her, all his emotions bottled into the way his   
lips met her skin, and her scared and angry stare was noticed only by   
the ceiling.   
  
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This takes place around "Goodbye, Love" in the show.  
This fic is for Lily, who could be my April, if anyone else was my Roger.  
The title, from the song "Sullivan St." by the Counting Crows, in far   
more relevant in context to the song. I suggest you listen to it.   
Thanks to Emily, who beta'd this. 


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